Hello there. I am a Linux systems user.

I am rendering at maximum view distance, and I still cannot find who the hell asked, nor cared!

Well damn… how can I argue against that? I'm keen on helping you adapt to change being encouraged by Microsoft as they ignore your preferences and tell you to just get on with the AI-riddled, privacy-invasive, e-waste generating disaster which is Windows 11. If you don't care, somebody else will do it for you, and that somebody else is Microsoft. Take control of your circumstances and tell Microsoft to shove off, especially if they're saying your machine isn't "Compatible" for some bullcrap "Security" reason.

Ha ha, ha ha ha! You're recommending a worse option for gaming! Nobody cares of your stupid loser Linux trash, you're dumb!

Then uh… don't use it? No reason to cast insults and express your skill issues through various acts of verbal brutality. Consider enjoying the outdoors if where you live won't immediately cause death past your house. There's more to life than games, most modern titles are trash anyway and the majority of people who use a computer barely get on with Windows, so what does it matter if that same majority doesn't know how to use open-source solutions initially?

If you like your OS to download news stories and assets for things you may not necessarily agree with, practically force you to use certain software because Microsoft wants to harvest your data for resale to advertisers without your consent, and support the idea that people should be told their computers are insufficient to run the latest version of an OS even though it ran the previous version just fine, then that's your choice. Please, don't try to enforce your preferences on others, thank you.

I have been using Ubuntu for over a decade, only having recently switched to Arch Linux (— through an Arch-based distribution) and overall have fifteen years of experience as an end-user which prioritises convenience over security, as a low-priority person of interest many malicious persons would not care to target.

I am creating this post to let you all know what can be done before October 14th, 2025 when the free updates for Windows 10 will cease due to it reaching end-of-life. While you may use things like 0patch to better keep your system secure in the absence of Microsoft's contributions, and maybe even later there may be incarnations of Legacy Update and KernelEX to keep your Windows 10 instance hobbling along without bending the knee to Microsoft and spending any more money than you have to, you should really consider an alternative.

Best of all, it isn't hard. (But it may require a lot of you to integrate smoothly.)

It's impossible to cover the whole gamut of issues you may encounter. But I intend to share some tips as a Linux user so you may begin moving away from Windows to anything else open-source. Feel free to share this article with your friends and family, so they may also understand what it is which needs doing now in order to make the transition fast, friendly and fun.

Of "Cliff Notes" and abridged information

There shall be no avoiding giant walls of text. RESIST the temptation say Too long; didn't read and instead, give a toss about your digital sovereign — if for nothing else to either help fix your instance of Windows, or give you a back-pocket alternative should your storage media cease to function.

This is going to be somewhat comprehensive. Stupidly so for such an article, some might say, and you may be revisiting this post on occasion to catch up or see updates if I ever release this with new links and sections. Do not let tall scrollbar discourage you. If you believe in yourself hard enough, you will succeed in learning something from this!

0a. Start using cross-platform tools in Windows

This is important. If you are using proprietary Windows-only solutions now, doing so forever will cripple your open-source experience. Depending on your occupation and needs, the transition to cross-platform tools may take quite a bit of time.

The good thing is that you're likely doing that already; Microsoft Edge can be installed in open-source systems if you prefer Microsoft continue to collect your data, but there are other, more privacy-respecting browser options which are also cross platform and based on Chromium or Firefox. If you play games using Steam, then a significant amount of your games library may be able to function with minimal configuration in a Linux instance. And even if you do not play many games you can still use Steam to run software using Proton, rather than installing and configuring WINE yourself and using other various compatibility tools, so you may try your hand at making certain Windows-only software work elsewhere with relative ease.

However, you can also install software which will also let you use Proton outside of Steam, as well Protontricks to further modify your Proton instances, but it usually requires WINE. If you happen to be using an Arch-based Linux system, making Protontricks use WINE optionally in favour of WINE binaries managed by Steam is something that can be easily done, and I may later disclose how to do this in a separate blog entry. Absent Valve's Proton you can also use Lutris to manage Windows software without the need to register for a Steam account! All solutions can be used in tandem, but if disk space is limited you may wish to prioritise one method over another.

If you've read this far and rolled your eyes firmly into the back of your skull, then feel free to quit reading and stick with your choices, but please don't be irrational and try to tell people they're stupid for even trying, especially if they disagree with what Microsoft had been doing with their computer. This is a choice, they are using their personal computer, and I am intent on promoting Linux systems as an option. People can install these options alongside Windows and switch between them freely; it isn't like I'm telling anyone to not use Windows.

Another good thing; you're most likely using a Linux system, right now if you have a handset or tablet running Android — what makes it tick is the Linux kernel! But that doesn't help you with your desktop PC. So instead of completely jumping into the deep-end and drowning, consider what software from portableapps.com you may use in your open-source workflow.

Not only does it avoid having to rely on the Microsoft store, it also is a trusted repository of Windows-only and cross-platform software you can keep on hand in case you need it and update utilities without the need to use Microsoft's App Installer or Store utilities which may become "Unsupported" and "Discontinued" in Windows 10 post-deadline to goad you toward upgrading your instance of Windows 10.

…And, if you write Ventoy onto your USB device as a means to boot into Linux live session instances (among other things like Windows installation binaries and virtual appliance snapshots) you can install the PortableApps Manager into the same space your Linux instance disc images go into! Finer details of this will be covered later.

0b. Begin exercising strict file management discipline

While seeming quite harsh to put it in this way, and not necessary to do as such, if you put specific files at the directories your operating system expects you to keep them in, and you conform to this method of file management then you can very quickly get any Linux instance in the future up-and-running with not only the applications you want, but also with easy access to your files in places which Linux distributions expect, courtesy of freedesktop.org's specifications as defined by their cross-desktop group (XDG).

If you want to see where all of your files are kept in Windows, then access location %userprofile% in Windows Explorer at any time. If you are willing to be a bit more daring with use of command prompt, then files can be quickly organised into directories Explorer would want your files to be using wildcards (*) with the move command.

About symbolic links

You know where your stuff is, but does software in your system instances? Symbolic links have been a thing for journaling partition formats like Microsoft's NT Filesystem (NTFS) and the Extended Filesystem (ext4) Linux instances use today. If you've ever played Valve's Portal, you may know about being able to reach from one space to another via entrances in two disparate locations as a virtual bridge between them. Your files can do this, as well, and exist in multiple locations at once! It's been a thing since the 1990's, but Microsoft users didn't really get to enjoy this in consumer applications until Windows Vista, yet it's been a thing for Linux users since ext2 had existed in 1993.

You do not need to understand this now, but I will bring this up later. Keep it in the back of your mind as you are reading this.

0c. De-fuse "Traps" in advance

They're not really traps, but more like features which cause installation trouble. Here are some things to look out for in your mainboard firmware which may interfere with your capability to use things other than Windows:

• Disable BitLocker in Windows — Yes, this reads exactly like you think; I am requesting you disable full disk encryption in Windows. If reading this after October 14th, 2025, then Windows 11 may have this enabled by default with no option during installation to disable. If your machine is your own, and only for leisure you never needed it on to begin with.

  You may be able to keep BitLocker enabled if you perform all partition manipulation procedures within Windows, but for any operations outside of Windows, third-party tools must be used to temporarily have decrypted access of the NTFS partition. If you have a second media you intend to install your Linux instance on, you may skip this.

  
  
• Fast startup / Fast boot — While this is great for Windows, Linux cannot exactly take advantage of this feature in the same way. Fast boot works by keeping some things for Windows on standby. This also keeps the partition Windows is installed at on-call, so you cannot make adjustments unless you boot into Windows. This is sort of a big deal because if the NTFS partition is locked, it means you cannot interact with it outside of Windows; the act of doing such likely being desired if adopting a dual-boot setup.
  
  
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) — Sometimes, this may be seen under a different name. Other times it's referred to as "RAID Mode" in a drive mode selection menu. Either way, the Linux kernel doesn't like it, so we can't use it. This also disables use of the hard disk when booted into a live session instance, so there's no point in leaving this on if you aren't going to be using it anyway.
  
  
• Secure Boot — You might not need to turn this off. It'll depend if your instance is a system by Canonical (Ubuntu), Red Hat (Fedora, RHEL) or if a derivative of these system instances also come with a shim to enable use of Secure Boot for both the live instance and whatever installations you create. This can be added onto existing instances after-the-fact as you may wish but it isn't mandatory to have on, and you can use Windows, as well Linux unimpeded without its anti-malware provisions.

If you have trouble booting back into Windows, simply undo your mainboard firmware changes, reboot and figure out how to make it so you can boot into Windows with these configuration settings modified to be more Linux instance-friendly.

With all of that done, and assuming your machine is relatively modern, let's move onto…

1. Establishing a bootable USB media

For this, we're going to use Ventoy. It's quite recent compared to other tried-and-tested solutions like Pendrive Linux's UUI / YUMI, Balena Etcher or Rufus, but it does something really cool — once you write it, you shouldn't need to format a target USB device ever again. Instantiating it on a USB-attached storage media is stupid-simple, and using it initially is even more so.

Navigate through Ventoy's homepage to download the latest version of Ventoy utilities built for Windows. The website may look sketchy, but it's just because the whole thing is managed basically by one person, and English isn't their native language. Ignoring those particularities, you should be able to fetch and open the compressed archive built for Windows — extract the software it provides to a separate directory in your on-board storage media and execute Ventoy2Disk.exe.

A graphical interface for this will open. You do need to make some changes here, depending on the vintage of system you are targeting ad how your instance of Windows is written. Most people will want to access  Option  from its menu bar and under  Partition Style , select  GPT . Optionally, if you want to use Secure Boot with it, you can toggle  Secure Boot Support .

Partition table formats and Ventoy's grievances

So, most storage media of the past before UEFI was ever fully established as a thing in the consumer space was written with the Disk Operating System ([​MS]DOS) table format. Yes, even somewhat-modern instances of Windows like Vista and 7 usually had its bootloader reside in the master boot record — that is where Ventoy gets its ill-named "MBR" partition style from, and I am ever-loathsome its author had yet to correct this. Most modern machines will be using the GUID Partition Table, or GPT. (Not to be confused with ChatGPT).

If you ever want to know what partition style you have, a dead giveaway for any disk with Windows that hadn't been excessively tampered with would be to find a very small Fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk. This can be elsewhere, but Microsoft had made it so Windows likes it best (as in, doesn't complain) if it has free space before any other partitions on disk. This can be found in diskmgmt.msc, but also you can see this in list format using diskpart at the command line and seeing if this small Fat32 partition is the first item listed when requesting it to list volume. If it does not exist, then it's likely MBR.

So what if you don't set the partition style in Ventoy2Disk to GPT and attempt installation on a modern boot system? While installing your Linux instance, its installation utility may expect a legacy disk configuration using the master boot record. Windows has this, but it is used for the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). So if you want to keep your WinRE features as-configured by your machine's OEM while dual-booting, you'll want to not need use of legacy support / CSM for installing your Linux instance. Put simply; match Ventoy's partition style to the current partition table format of your on-board media for the best possible outcome.

Once that is finished, you will have space to put any Linux distributions which pique your interest. If your handset or tablet running Android had included ExFAT support, you can attach your USB media and manage images from there as well!

Recalling back to what I said about PortableApps' software earlier; you can install the PortableApps Manager on your USB device, in the ExFAT partition Ventoy (through Ventoy2Disk) had made. Bear in mind the more files you include in this space, the longer it will take Ventoy to list bootable disc images.

2. Fetching a Linux image

This is going to be the most simple part; Just get something. But so I am writing something of substance here, let's use EndeavourOS as an example, because from what I've seeing, it is probably one of the more simple solutions to choose from. It can be made even easier, as well once we get there.

But why?

Everything that i am saying from hereon is intended to address my preferences. But also a consideration; the Steam Deck is using KDE's Plasma Desktop, commonly referred to in isolation as Plasma shell. If you do not find a liking to Plasma, well… too bad, there are no other options for EndeavourOS. If you want to treat other selections as concept distributions, you can give various builds of Ubuntu (Debian-based + snaps) or Manjaro (Arch-based) a try. You might even install them, which is your prerogative and right to do as owner of a personal computer.

Yet you may find anything on a machine you install many Linux distributions to afford you more freedom of action than a Steam Deck. While we're not going to discuss it here, the reason for that is atomic delivery (atomicity) and immutable root (immutability). These are Internet platform development concepts manifest in general compute space, and unless you are a moderate- to high-priority target for a state actor, there is no reason to exercise such provisions. You know who you are.

If you want a more simple desktop, feel free to explore your options and find something right for you but in my personal opinion nothing can beat Xfce. before EndeavourOS' adoption of Plasma as desktop since their Galileo release, Xfce was its default!

If you're following along with me and fetching EndeavourOS, pick your nearest mirror here and download the ISO. If you prepared your boot media with Ventoy earlier, save it right to your USB device but for data integrity sake, eject the USB device you intend to boot with (through the Safely remove hardware prompt Windows provides to let you do this in your notification tray) and then reboot.

If you intend to use another method which mandates you format the USB device for the image to be written (basically, anything else people use to make disc images bootable via USB) then use that utility to flash the instance onto the USB device, and still eject before rebooting to make absolutely certain every

3a. Instantiation and evaluation

To instantiate the live session and proceed with installation, intervene before the Windows splash screen and either make it so your USB device is first to boot, or select from a boot menu.

Should you be using Ventoy to instantiate your Linux live session instance for installation, you can give many options a try before you commit to anything! If ever at any time you consider my personal choice as incorrect for you, then through online resources seek any alternatives you might enjoy, fetch the ones you want to try out, and see if that is worth committing to. Your USB device isn't the only place images can be access from, but if you pressed  F2  to select an ISO image from locally-available media, then should that media be stored in the same place as Microsoft Windows, you will not be able to resize the NTFS partition for making space as it will be on-call, with Ventoy having co-opted it. Use an image directly from the USB device to resolve.

If Secure Boot was left enabled, you can still use Linux distributions live and install, but the distribution needs to support that. If it doesn't, you must disable it — it's safe to do, unless you or others under your administrative control inadvertently execute a rootkit for older machines. Most Linux distributions are generally safe to use by-default, even with this board feature disabled.

Once you're booted into it, feel free to try some things out and understand what you'll be in for. If you are playing along with EndeavourOS, you'll be able to manage software via your terminal (in this case, using  konsole ) with  pacman and  yay . If you want this to be done even more easily (since KDE Plasma is based on Qt), you can do the following in  konsole to install an Arch-exclusive graphical software management utility:
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman -S octopi

 sudo pacman -Syy  is only necessary to force-refresh available software in all repositories. Ideally you only -Syy after changing repository servers, but since it's your first time doing this stuff after being online in the live session, it may help with possible retrieval issues.

And if it doesn't, you can open  reflector-simple  — a software exclusive to EndeavourOS — to pick local mirrors and try again.

3b. Partitioning

Aha, you probably thought I was going to just get right at installation. Not quite yet; I want to cover this topic first since you might like to understand a little bit about how you'd make space for another system instance.

Aside from odd, yet awesome things like Proxmox as a type-1 hypervisor (which we will not get into), your partitioning will usually be handled by two applications; the Disk Management console snap-in for Windows; typically invoked with diskgmt.msc and whatever partitioning tools come with your Linux distribution. If you go with my suggestions earlier, EndeavourOS' instance of Plasma Desktop also has KDE's partition manager, both which we may use for making some space.

A brief note about BitLocker

It is vitally important to understand if the NTFS partition Windows is on has full-disk encryption courtesy of BitLocker, you will not be able to manipulate the partition assigned for its root outside of Windows safely. Windows 11 will want to have this enabled by default, and some Windows 10 instances may already have this enabled as well depending on how your OEM had set your machine up. It bears reiterating — do not attempt to resize a BitLocker-protected disk outside of Windows unless you absolutely know what you are doing!

If you're still in Windows, you should run chkdsk with the /f switch for the C drive, which you cannot do while the Windows instance is active so you must reboot — either scheduled for later, to be greeted with disk checking status as a single line at the bottom of your Windows instance splash (or depending on configuration / system vintage, command prompt text in an invisible frame) or later, while holding right shift to access WInRE so you may give yourself a command prompt without the partition Windows usually mounts on-call so you may use command prompt via WinRE to check the disk for defects and anomalies in the NTFS journal.

While optional and should never be performed on a solid-state media, I also advise against making any changes to a hard disk without de-fragmenting where Windows resides on, to further ensure data integrity and adjust where contiguous free space is, which should improve how much space you can remove from the NTFS partition by shrinking it in Disk Management. Again, in no uncertain terms never do this to a solid-state media. Ever. Just move on to resizing the partition Windows is on if using a solid-state media.

Even after over a decade, Windows' Disk management still blows chunks to use so no blame for using a third-party tool in Windows to shrink your disk further, but this isn't really necessary since you can do pretty much the same thing in your Linux instance. If you find that at least 49,152 Mibibytes (48 gibibytes) cannot be allocated in Windows, your luck will surely improve in Linux so long you have that much space to spare (and don't mind the mild risk of damaging the partition by accident as you shrink it outside of Windows).

You can allocate as much, or as little space you want. A whole Linux instance can fit on 16 Gibibytes of space as root and EFI system partition alone, but most are not going to like that experience. I'll explain why so much space later.

Rather than covering every variable under the sun, I'll discuss two philosophies people exercise either-or when establishing their environment;

• Unified root / single partition
• Split root / dual partition

Mind, these are my names for these things. I am sure there is a more standard naming association for both methods.

Let's understand both.

Unified root

This method assumes all data is going into the root (/) directory. While more simple to set up and configure compared to parting root into separate partitions — often, with people only separating home from root — this can lead to data retention issues if you ever have to re-install the instance, for any reason; in the process of re-installation you may end up overwriting your files. unless you've configured yet another space to keep your files which isn't your home partition, since a format will also destroy all data in /home.

This also introduces problems if /home has enough content to begin affecting how well your system functions — ext4's performance will suffer when reaching ever-closer to zero bytes available due to how that format arranges files, but this is of greater concern for hard disk use rather than solid--state.

Split root

This was popular initially up until some time ago when bigger players in the Linux space abandoned a separate home partition. This can be configured per-distributor as a default size, but this sometimes leads into installation issues that can be avoided by automating a limited manipulation procedure where only a single partition is created.

If you go with this, the system will assume /home is on a separate mountpoiint at all times, which means if it fails, you lose access to your files, but not the instance. So you can still boot and use applications, but have no access to your personal files or preferences.

If you've made a configuration mistake and re-installing the system doesn't resolve it, then you may have had modified something in /home/.config which is causing problems. Rename this directory and fresh configuration files (hopefully as sane defaults) will be made for everything. You can move things in one-at-a-time until you find the offending file or directory, and once triaged resolve the cause for show-stopping instance use issues.

No matter how you do it, ensure it is what's best for you based on how you expect the system to be used. If all you do is browse the Internet and make little of relevance where overwhelming your disk with content can be a problem, then putting everything in a single partition would do well for you. If on the other hand you may find yourself putting a bunch of stuff in /home and want to prevent root from being overwhelmed, making a separate partition for /home will matter more.

I can't tell you how to set up your partitions, but if you are going to dual-boot Windows then an absolute minimum while still ensuring end-user comfort of not running out of disk space too soon would be 48 GiB for root, and root alone. If going with a home partition, I would likely recommend 16 GiB per-user, and anything past that could reside in the NTFS partition.

Symbolic links change everything…

I don't say this lightly; once you understand how to make one directory or file be shared across multiple locations, you'll never again see your directory tree the same way. Learn them, and learn them well; you can re-use directories from across partitions so long only one partition supports this method of access, and you can have directories made primarily of links to try out ideas without wasting disk space on duplicate files.

The only problem are index nodes; ext4 partitions made on your behalf typically have a fixed number of inodes, which represent every file that will ever be written on the partition. Meanwhile NTFS has (practically) unlimited file IDs to spare. While not every user will reach their inode limit — and ideally, you may not encounter this — be wary of this limitation and exercise symbolic links wisely. You can also inadvertently overwrite content accessed by links and unlink real files, thus voiding yourself of access to them, so with extreme power, par-extreme caution must be exercised.

Now let's get to why this changes everything — you can create links to access files from existing partitions, where your XDG-supported desktop and installed software will expect them. So you can leave your instance's directory configuration alone, use software with minimal fuss and avoid issues with hard-coded directory paths in applications (such as $HOME/Downloads) while still being able to access files from directories on separate partitions, as-if they were on the target partition. If you are dual-booting, you can create links from your NTFS partition's directory in /Windows/Users (or whatever directories in Windows you have configured as libraries) into the ext4 partition's /home directory for your user account. This makes dual-booting brain-dead simple since you'll always have access to the files on either your Windows or Linux instance, so long both instances mount the partition where your files are.

3c. Installation

Now that you understand what are typical Linux desktop options, let's get to installing the system. If you are using EndeavourOS you will be saddled with too many options. If you go with the "Offline" method then what you see is what you get, much like a typical Linux distribution as provided by the likes of Canonical, Linux Mint, Red Hat and so-on.

From hereon, this is being assumed; EndeavourOS with KDE's Plasma Desktop for a GPT-formatted disk. You can, of course make changes as you see fit, but I can't provide advice for every option, else this document will balloon in size more than it already has.

During partitioning, if you were to partition in advance then you will have seen in your disk with the NTFS partition, it also contained a Microsoft Reserved Partition (irrelevant for our needs but should not be tampered with) and a smaller Fat32 partition — your disk's extensible firmware interface system partition, or ESP for short. For lack of better explanation, this is where your bootloader files will end up going.

Speaking of, you'll be prompted for a choice of one bootloader; either GRUB2 or Systemd-boot (previously, Gummiboot). When Microsoft installs your instance of Windows in a GPT-formatted disk, it will always make an ESP that is sized almost entirely just for it. The GRUB2 bootloader is small enough to reside in this space alongside with Windows, while Systemd-boot may encounter space provisioning issues in the ESP.

You will be prompted of what to do with your disk next. I take no stock in automation, but if you want to roll the dice and let EndeavourOS do everything for you, then anything bad which happens due to lax preparation of your disk will entirely be your fault. To avoid such issues, I always take the extra time to manually configure my partitions.

So, from order of left to right, for a disk which already has Microsoft Windows and some space allocated past the NTFS partition:

• ESP — Keep, mount as either:

  • /boot/efi — GRUB2's preferred mount point, and default provided in Calamares.
  • /boot — Systemd-boot's preferred mount point, EndeavourOS' default for both bootloader and location.

• Other partitions; recovery, tools, etc. — Do nothing
• MSR — Do nothing
• NTFS — Keep if dual-booting on same disk, Resize; shrink 48 GiB minimally (more if you are going to add swap space, which I will not cover here)
• Unallocated — Format as ext4, mount as /

  If you find to have writing issues with the ext4 partition format for any reason whatsoever, use BTRFS instead. If you find doing this in EndeavourOS untenable, Ubuntu seems to handle this better.
  

  If you are going to separate /home from root, you may wish to follow prior advice about this.
  

Once you've got your system set up the way you want it, then from that point look over the summary, and so long your Windows instance isn't going to be smashed, existing ESPs aren't going to be smashed which would bar use of other, existing system instances (or if on a separate media, a new ESP will be made) and you're certain of your software configuration, you can choose to install and wait for things to be finished.

Future content plans

I am going to post more things about Linux over the next month and reply to comments as I see them. This post was daunting to make and I almost gave up entirely on this, but I want all of my followers to be part of a big push to divest their general compute away from Windows, and gradually make their way over to open-source alternatives. Once you understand a bit of how these things work, you shouldn't ever be locked down and stuck in a cave of ignorance, ever again.

And, even if you do not want to use Linux for general compute, as well gaming, you should still observe some literacy about the topic since if you are serious about having a Minecraft server of your own to share between friends, most technical persons will laugh at you if you think of Microsoft server..It's not an invalid choice, but the free-of-cost nature for solutions using the Linux kernel will enable you to set your server up for dirt-cheap with nothing more than information from the Internet and quite a bit of time to spare for learning how to instantiate it successfully.

The fact you can have a fully-functioning desktop that gets you to 80% of your needs with almost zero effort is just a bonus at this point, but said side benefit may soon be a main draw if you dislike where Microsoft has been going with Windows, and you don't feel like screwing around with various incarnations of Ameliorated Windows.

See you again soon!